In light of new users not being able to receive emails that are needed to sign up for the forum, I tried to use the "email topic" link on the bottom left of a forum thread to see if it was a more general email failure. I sent it to an alternate email address and asked to receive a copy to the one I signed up to the forum with. No email was received (will edit this post if one shows up).

This issue has been going for about a month now. Do any admins/etc have any idea what's happening?

I was part of a far, far smaller forum (like, 20 regular users small) for a number of years and at one point the admin went AWOL and one user ended up finding his phone number from whois or something and phoning him. It got his attention and we were able to fix whichever issue we had!

So... Here's an email address I lifted from xkcd's about page so it's at least a public-facing email and not his home phone number: davean@xkcd.com

I haven't emailed him because I figure it's probably better that one of the mods do so since, you know, you guys have authority; but hopefully that email address can help you get in touch with him.

It has been over a month that this problem has been occurring so it would be nice if it could be looked into. I know this is just a silly little web forum, but I have so much fun playing mafia and not getting forum emails really messes with my play style, which as "silly little web forums" go is pretty important to me!

I both emailed the topic to myself and subscribed before I replied with an alt. So far, no email.

Looks broke to me.

(The email function is platform independent - Forum don't care how you get here - Windows, Mac, iOS, wired tuba, potato - Forum only care what you've set it to do. In this case, I've set it to send me an email every time this thread gets a response. No email. In conclusion, forum's broke)

Poking around the admin panel, I basically see the problem aaaannnndddd - there's nothing I can do without greater access than Admin Rights of the forum. I would need server access.

heuristically_alone wrote:I want to write a DnD campaign and play it by myself and DM it myself.

heuristically_alone wrote:I have been informed that this is called writing a book.

You mean you receive email notifications at your gmail address or wherever?

Unless stated otherwise, I do not care whether a statement, by itself, constitutes a persuasive political argument. I care whether it's true.---If this post has math that doesn't work for you, use TeX the World for Firefox or Chrome

Unless stated otherwise, I do not care whether a statement, by itself, constitutes a persuasive political argument. I care whether it's true.---If this post has math that doesn't work for you, use TeX the World for Firefox or Chrome

He claims to have set up an alert for when people misspell it with the capital.

But of course, no emails right now.

Unless stated otherwise, I do not care whether a statement, by itself, constitutes a persuasive political argument. I care whether it's true.---If this post has math that doesn't work for you, use TeX the World for Firefox or Chrome

If such an @xkcd.com address is routed via the same failing system, there may be no joy. I don't know if it would affect Randall's own @xkcd.com portal addresses (depends on how/where it's all set up), but one presumes at least a possible shared layer of administratium from those 'hanging off' the domain and those for which an associated MX (however physically and logically separated mail and web services) is filed.

Anyway, there's also the possibility that it stems from a wetware failure, at davean's end, and thus the opportunity to correct a failure or resubscribe to a necessary service was lost. (With all that implies. It'd not be the first time that has happened.)

I've been assuming all along that TPTB have been able to (once they understood the problem) escalate it. Presumably Randall knows at least how to get the keys to all the little periphal toyboxes associated with his IP (however openly licensed), probably knows the snail-mail addresses (if not cell phone numbers). But I wouldn't presume to pester Randall myself.

As a boringly unelevated end-user, I'm just gonna suggest to all my fellow boringly unelevated end-users that the people with the coloured names are probably working their way up through their own levels of deferential enquiring of those they consider more likely. It looks like it took some time to be identified, but that's not surprising. Such a distributed hierarchy of voluntary adminstrators as we see before us are likely not universally up-to-speed with the in-depth details. I don't know who does what, exactly, behind the scenes but some are there as "social herders" rather than technical experts. SecondTalon certainly just outed themselves as being a techy, knowledgeable enough to prod at the innards, though encountering an access-requirement that is (so far) above their (conceptual) pay-grade. That's good enough for me!

To the Colourful Names, I shall just voice my encouragement that it seems that you collectively now have a handle on the problem. And I would presume that there's more behind-the-scenes chatter back in your secret hidden Mod Cave, assuming you even need to chatter about it. ST seems to have taken point but might just be the Alfred in this case, not the Bruce Wayne. Or maybe isn't the Alfred, but (as Bruce) can still publicly attend the society function while the robbery is being foiled by the replacement costumed figure who is Alfred, and thus stretch the analogy much further than Burt Ward's hotpants were ever allowed to.

I had a point. There was one, up there somewhere.

Basically, right now I expect that in the background, Commissioner Gordon has gotten through to the Batcave (or Aunt Harriet has had to be distracted, momentarily, so that everyone else can get to the Batpoles) and/or the strains of the Captain Planet theme tune are dying out, over by the pool of recently dumped toxic sludge. Heart? Well, if you're going to make up your own fifth element, it might as well be Heart. Or Milla Jovovich. And the Centurians only had Land, Sea and Air(/Space). And a dog. And yet they had teleporter technology! Imagine their actual capabilities, given teleporter technology. Where was I..?

Apparently, I've been ninjaed. Possibly by turtles, or maybe it was Samurai Pizza Cats.

Yeah, the job on my profile isn't a joke. My occupation deals with primarily Windows servers, workstations, and network devices like printers and access points and all that.

I don't deal much with Linux or Unix administration and I don't do shit with any sort of programming language or web development beyond some basic configuration stuff. Real basic.

Point being that the forum is currently set to send mail through itself. Which means either the server it's on has a mail service that is in a fail state OR the mail configuration got blanked and I'm looking at default settings. See above: I don't know shit about php and php forums doubly so.

In either case, I don't have access to the server to restart the service nor do I know if the current mail settings are even correct.

From what I'm seeing, it appears I could put in any active SMTP settings and it would work. In actuality I don't know enough about what it does on the backend to pull the trigger on that, even if I had some settings I was comfortable routing shit through.

Because ultimately I don't pay for this nor am I contracted and paid to maintain it. That I've given myself the computer permissions to look at the settings and change them does not mean I actually have the social permissions to change shit.

heuristically_alone wrote:I want to write a DnD campaign and play it by myself and DM it myself.

heuristically_alone wrote:I have been informed that this is called writing a book.

So I still get notifications and mail, and the mindy account does too. (I don't know why or how I know this) are other mindy's getting notifications or just me? Mindy should subscribe to a few things to check it out.

My meta for future reference

Spoiler:

cemper93 wrote:Your meta appears to be "just writes whatever is on his mind and doesn't remember what happened more than five hours ago"

Peaceful Whale wrote:So I still get notifications and mail, and the mindy account does too. (I don't know why or how I know this) are other mindy's getting notifications or just me? Mindy should subscribe to a few things to check it out.

We are talking about e-mails. Only the person who owns mindy's email address could know that, and she's not been online a lot recently.

A week and a half ago, gmalivuk wrote:Yeah those work fine. This thread is about email.

Yes, notifications work and we all know notifications work. Email doesn't work and that's why this thread is and always has been about email, not forum notifications.

Unless stated otherwise, I do not care whether a statement, by itself, constitutes a persuasive political argument. I care whether it's true.---If this post has math that doesn't work for you, use TeX the World for Firefox or Chrome

I understand you're a volunteer and you've got a lot on your plate and you can't fix this problem yourself, but it's been three months and I (and no doubt other users) would really appreciate being kept in the loop about the status. This is a major bug in the forum since it prevents password changes and new user sign ups.

In particular, I'd really love to know if the webmaster is aware of the problem? Is there any sort of timeframe at all on when it might be fixed?

davean was notified via the only contact method I have for him that does not involve the forum on or around August 30th. I don't recall the exact date and while I could look it up for precision I don't see the point.

I have attempted to contact him through other avenues but have been unsuccessful.

Other than my ability to look at the backend of the php forum, you have as much information as I do.

heuristically_alone wrote:I want to write a DnD campaign and play it by myself and DM it myself.

heuristically_alone wrote:I have been informed that this is called writing a book.

Could someone, I don't know, tweet at Randall Munroe or something to get attention?

I mean, is there a protocol for what the heck you do if a problem's been ongoing for 3 months and you can't contact the sysadmin? (or are you guys all discussing this and the appropriate contingencies in the modcave and I'm just being an annoying distraction?)

(RE other avenues, in case you didn't find it, I think I found davean's reddit account, but it's only sporadically active so not a sure thing by any means.)